At First Light(Dr. Evan Wilding #1)(51)

Halfway through the stack, she stopped.

A woman named Rachel Chen had called to say she used to work for Talfour at Finer Things and might have information related to the murder of her former boss.

Score!

Addie crossed the fingers on her left hand and dialed the number the sergeant had jotted down. Someone picked up on the third ring, and a woman said hello.

“This is Detective Bisset with Chicago PD. May I speak with Rachel Chen?”

“This is she. Thanks for getting back to me, Detective.”

“Thanks for your call. You say you have information about the death of James Talfour?”

“I might. I don’t know if it’s really relevant. But I thought someone should know.”

“Know what, Ms. Chen?”

“I used to work at Mr. Talfour’s store, Finer Things. Did you know he was assaulted six months ago?”

“We’re aware of the incident, yes.”

“Well, even though I worked there, I didn’t know. The day before Mr. Talfour got hurt was my last day at the store. I’d accepted a position at Nordstrom in the cosmetics department and was taking a trip to see family before I started my new job. I was on a plane the day he was attacked. But when I got back, no one from your department contacted me to ask if I’d seen anything or knew anything. Which is unforgivable, in my opinion. I just found out this afternoon what happened because the reporter mentioned it in the article about Mr. Talfour’s murder.”

“I’m sorry for the oversight, Ms. Chen.” Addie grabbed a ballpoint pen from the mug on her desk and turned over the pink message slip. “Did you see something?”

“The article also says that the attack was racially motivated. Is that true?”

“I can’t really respond to that at this point,” Addie said. She clicked the pen on and off. “What information do you have?”

“Did you know Mr. Talfour was blind in his right eye? He probably didn’t even see them coming.”

Interesting, Addie thought. The killer had cut out Talfour’s right eye. “Was this common knowledge?”

“We didn’t talk about it around the shop, if that’s what you mean. But it was obvious if you looked straight at him that something was wrong with his eye.”

A child’s voice sounded over the line. “Mommy? I need a drink of water in my Cookie Monster cup.”

“Okay, Amy. You can fill your cup in the bathroom. Mommy will be right there.” There was a pause and then Rachel said, “A man came into Finer Things on my last day there. The day before the attack. He wanted a ring made. A pewter band with Viking runes on it.”

Addie sat up. Her tiredness fell away. “I’m listening.”

“I didn’t think anything about the order, other than that the guy didn’t look like someone who’d drop a lot of money on a piece of jewelry. And Finer Things is expensive. But he didn’t seem overly concerned about the estimate I drew up for him. He thanked me and said he’d be in touch. What made me remember him wasn’t just the ring he wanted. It was what I noticed as he was walking out.”

The child’s voice again. “Mommy?”

“Two more minutes, baby,” Rachel called.

“Please go on, Ms. Chen,” Addie said.

“The man was wearing a brown leather vest over his hoodie. On the back were those lightning bolt symbols that you see on the news sometimes. The kind that neo-Nazis wear.”

“The sigel runes? A double S for Schutzstaffel?”

“That’s right. I looked them up just tonight.”

“What else did you notice about this man?”

“Long light-brown hair. He wore it in a man bun. And intense blue eyes.”

Addie kept writing. “Any scars? Tattoos?”

“He had something tattooed on the back of his right hand. I noticed it when he filled out a custom-order form. It was a circle with a smaller, solid circle inside.”

The sun cross. Addie forced herself to relax her grip on the pen.

“It had lines radiating out from the center,” Rachel said. “The lines were bent so that they almost looked like lightning bolts. It looked a lot like a swastika.”

That description didn’t quite match the symbol the killer had carved next to the runes. But it sounded similar. And Rhinehart had mentioned a version of the sun cross created by the Nazis. Addie’s pulse slammed in her neck. “You have a name for this man, then? Since he filled out a form for you.”

“I couldn’t remember what was on it, of course. Not after all this time.”

Addie waited.

“I asked one of my former coworkers to look it up for me,” Rachel said. “We scan those forms and keep them online for about six months. The man never came back to order the ring. But the form was still in the file. So yes, I have a name. Hank Helskin.”

“Can you have your former coworker scan and email the form to me?”

“I’m sure that won’t be a problem.”

“And can you make a drawing of the tattoo you saw and email that to me as well?”

“Of course.”

“Maaa—meeee!” came Amy’s voice in the background.

“I’m coming, sweetie. Detective, would you excuse me a moment?”